Is there a certain way I should go about doing this?

#1

I was given a task to perform. A scene was shot using fake fairy wing props on actors and they want me to try and make it look more magical and “realistic”. This is not done on green screen. The main problem I am having is that the actors are rotating around kind of forcing me to do it frame by frame, and then on top of that, I do not really know what to do to make a prop look more realistic or magical. If they had me make the wings from scratch, then I have some ideas on what to do, but these are Halloween props that I need to spice up. Any ideas on what I should try out? I already searched various after effects vids and images to see what other people do for stuff like this but i couldnt really find anything. The only thing I could think of is just adding some slight glows or little fairy dust effects on and around the wings as they move.

Or do I need to try my best and let them know that the footage they sent me was not optimal for effects editing (no green screen, wings already there and move quite a bit with complicated background)

#2

Picture of what you got and maybe what they want would be helpfull.

#3

Here is a cropped image. They werent very specific. It’s not a paid gig, just me offering to help out so I they dont really know what they really want. They just wanted to see what I could do for the shot to make it seem more fairy like and not propish.

Edit: The Black wings are what they want me to fix up

Edit: Maybe I can add some kind of texture to it to make it look more wing like

#4

Hi My Friend…
Look There Is a Law For Creating Visual FX, You Can’t Make What You Can’t See.
In Other Words You Have To Watch Some Children Movies or Some Fairy Clips That Will Make Up You’re Mind.
To Begin With , Soft Edeged Blurs and Particles Make Videoes Look More Fairy! You Can Add a Some Yellow and Orange Particles To The Shot, Give It a Soft Rounded Vignette With Blur. And For The Wings ( Who Make Angle Wings Like That!!!) I See You Have Not Much Black Going In The Shot Exepct The Wings So You Can Isolate Them In a Seperate Layer By RotoBrush (If You Have CS5) Or CC Threshold Or Levels Or… And Give Them Some Other Color With e Nice Blending Mode.You Mentioned Glow That’s Nice Too.
Good Luck My Friend
BE GREEN

#5

Thanks, I will try some of those things out. It’s not that I dont know what fairy wings look like, it’s that I wasnt sure what I should do to make the prop seem less prop like. They didnt want me to edit the whole scene, just the wings. Normally something like this would have the wings done in CG. Thanks for the advice.

#6

Ok, I don’t know if this will help you or not but I will give it a go anyways… :smiley:

There is a way you can make a pair of wings using after effects and trapcode 3D stroke.

The advantages are you can change the perspective in 3D, and make them flutter a bit.

The disadvantage is it is work intensive and i’ve only made glowy angel wings and not dark shadowy demon wings. I’m pretty sure you can just change the colors around to suit your needs…

The end result should look like this:

Long winded tutorial to follow as I make up the examples to post:

#7

Step 1. Draw up a design for what you want the wing to look like. For this tutorial I borrowed a sketch off deviantart from anghellic7 (It was one of the best results in google image search)

Step 2. Create a new solid. Apply the Trapcode 3D Stroke Filter.

Step 3. Trace the Wing with masks and make a “Skeleton” of the wing shape. The strokes should start where the wing connects with the actors back, and extend to the tips of each individual feather.

Step 4: Continue adding “Filler” Feathers, extending from the core of the long feathers. The point here is to fill gaps and add feathers in the “bulk” of the wing.

Step 5: Adjust the settings of the 3D Stroke, specifically the thickness and taper settings to start with. By adjusting the taper settings with the Taper Start at 0, you should have something that looks like this:

Step 6: This is a good time to fill in the gaps between feathers if they exist. Create more mask strokes as neccessary.

Step 7: Create a camera and a 3D null object to parent it to. This will allow you to rotate around the wing to finess it’s shape. In the 3D Stroke settings, expand the Camera set and click “Comp Camera”. Rotate around the wing and check out it’s shape, which is still pretty flat.

More following:

#8

Step 8: Scale the strokes and position them so that the inside edge of the wings (The part that goes into the actors back) is near center frame. Twirl down 3D Strokes Transform properties, and add a slight bend (Between .5 and 1.5). Rotate your null object 180 degrees so you are viewing it from the other side, so the wing is bending towards you.

Step 9: Just for kicks. Click and drag the “Bend Axis” setting and scroll through the numbers. Watch the wing flap! Rotate around with the camera and bask in it’s 3D glory!

Step 10. Twirl down the repeater settings if you desire. Turn symmetric doubler off and instances to 1. Scale the repeat down a little bit perhaps and use it to add more depth and variation to your wings.

Step 11. Glow, Shine, and Lense flare the everliving kerfluffle out of it. I made this one black and added a black starglow and shine to it for an example:

Step 12: Repeat the steps to create a mirrored wing. Then composite onto the actor.

Hope this helps a bit. :cool: If you have any questions about steps in between or other things you can do to finish it up, let me know and I will try and post more details.

#9

Thanks for that info. I was trying to figure out what to do to the props, but maybe itll be a better idea if I almost ignore the props and add something over it like what you just showed me. I’ll try it our and see how it works. Thanks!

#10

So I managed to get a nice effect going, but how might I go about removing or blending in the strap under the arm pit? I tried to select in, but it is hard to do since it moves around. Im afraid that the only thing I can think of would be to do it frame by frame.

#11

Unfortunatly I can’t offer many suggestions on that one. You can try motion tracking the strap and then animating a patch over it, but it sounds already like it’s going to be very work intensive.

#12

Yeah I tried rotobrusing it and doing some alterations, but it just looks weird and then i tried getting a patch of some other skin and applying it over, but that still doesnt come out to great either. Maybe masking it out and getting something else below it? I have no idea and dont want to spend days doing this since im just helping people out with a project.

#13

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